Gartner Sees an End to Big Declines in PC Shipments

Yes, tablets and traditional PCs can coexist in the market place

You may find yourself wanting to gouge your eyeballs out with a used grapefruit spoon every time you see a headline declaring the end the end of the PC era. We're willing to concede that tablets and even smartphones have cut into traditional PC sales the last several quarters, and we haven't been shy about covering the decline in shipments, but the numbers just don't support the notion that the PC as you know is dead. Furthermore, at least one market research firm believes the market is close to bottoming out.

Let's back up a moment. In October, Gartner said that combined desktop, notebook, and ultramobile shipments were on pace to top 321.6 million units in 2013, versus 184.4 million tablet shipments. In 2014, Gartner expects PC shipments to stay virtually flat with 321.4 million shipments, while tablets enjoy continued growth with 263.2 million shipments.

The way we see it, tablets aren't replacing PCs, they're coexisting with them. Not only that, Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai told The Wall Street Journal that the days of double-digit declines in PC shipments are coming to an end. Tsai and company predict PC shipments will slow in the fourth quarter of 2013 to a 3 percent year-on-year drop, much better than the 8.6 percent decline noted in the third quarter.

"The decline is at a much slower rate," Tsai said. "The global economy is stabilizing. Also, there will be more lower-cost, aggressively priced two-in-one (tablet with a keyboard) devices that are being launched in the second half of this year, which should help demand."

This is all good news for an industry that's struggling to figure out how best to leverage both mobile and traditional PC sales. Acer Chairman J.T. Wang recently resigned after his company posted a record loss, and Michael Dell bought back the company he founded and made it private so that he wouldn't have to answer to shareholders. Meanwhile, Lenovo continues to post strong quarters with impressive desktop, notebook, and mobile PC sales figures.

In any event, the bottom line here is that the days of declining PC shipments seem to be nearing an end.

Comments

Main thing I see working retail around PCs and tablets is, due to the marketing methods utilized by tablet manufacturers, Uninformed consumers are completely confused about what a tablet is or does. Daily I get asked "what's the difference between this and a laptop?" Sadly a large portion of movement in the market comes from people that want tablets because they are the new cool thing and they have no idea what it is or does.

And the shills tell them that their traffic will be safe from the NSA now because Yahoo, Google and everyone else will encrypt their data to prevent NSA from spying on them in the future, AND THE MORONIC CONSUMERS BELIEVE IT!

How fucking retarded are they?

They never realize that the new encryption is to keep out all the "Other" bad guys, while the NSA remains in control of the servers and the data with their keys to all that data

Stupid Consumers

How many thousand times must you be lied to before you realize it's just another one?

I think that Windows 8 also plays a part in this decline. I deal with dozens of people on a daily basis expressing their distaste for Win8. You have to understand that some people just don't want to go through the trouble of understanding the new Metro/Tablet/Tile(whatever you want to call it) interface.

I finally got an iPad, mainly because it was free from Dish. I really don't understand the appeal of tablets. Its so weak and slow compared to a PC and the virtual keyboard is a p.i.t.a. (I can type 70+ WPM, why fiddle with something that can't accommodate that skill?). They're gimped devices - a half-butt, weak notebook without a keyboard. If I do anything beyond a quick search on Google while I'm on the couch I go to my PC.

That said, I never buy a prebuilt, retail PC. I've built and upgraded all mine for the last ten years.

That's because you're using the tablet as if it was a computer or work laptop. It's not.
I couldn't live without my tablet, yet I still have my desktop PC and use it as much as before. My laptop did get a severe drop in usage, as I mainly used it for traveling, and now I prefer bringing my tablet. I don't work on my tablet (or laptop) when traveling, I just use them to pass the time while abroad (playing light games, watching movies, browsing, etc) and for that, the tablet is a full replacement for my laptop.

Retirees like me that travel about 6 to 12 weeks a year; just like our cell phones for mobile communications. When we settle into to our destination or motel; we pop open our ultrabooks and--by choice---go on line. We like posting our travel photo's on Facebook/e-mail every night. Have had no real need to be online when on the road--just have that cell phone talk to Bluetooth in our Outback --hands free. Being on-line 24/7 is NOT our "cup-of-tea" . We each have our own Desktops at home; which get a lot of use. In summary: Desktops at Home, Ultrabooks in Paris, and cell phone on Route 66.

I get a new phone every few years and last year I got a tablet instead of a new Notebook. I have not built a new desktop P C in five years, just did some upgrades but now I am building one again and I am also planning on a new Ultrabook this coming year. The point is that with the modern last few generations of PC's we do not need to replace them as often but the P C is still the main tec device for most of us. I do not consider a smartphone even in the same category. That would be like saying I buy fewer steaks because a new brand of peanut butter came out.

I agree with most of what you said, save for the analogy. I don't think it's that cut and dry. I have no doubt that some traditional PC sales were lost in favor of smartphones by people who just need basic connectivity (Facebook, looking up info on the web once in awhile, and firing off an occasional email). Same goes for tablets which, like smartphones, are basically handheld PCs.